According to CEO Carlos Ghosn, unlike its other Japanese rivals, Nissan has made a strategic decision to cede the standalone hybrid wars to them and will not make hybrid-only models such as Toyota’s Prius or Honda’s Insight.
The Salamander of myth and legend: a creature which lives in water but renews its life in fire. It’s rubbish, Bunkum, steaming horse manure… a bit like an electric car with neither plug nor solar panels.
Except no one’s told those clever boffins over at Advanced Power and Energy Sources Transportation (APET) in Hong Kong. According to them, the Salamander and the cordless EV are about to step out of myth and into reality.
APET’s revolution centres upon how zinc air batteries can power EVs. The technology is proven on the small scale: hearing aid battery adverts dominate any Google search for “zinc air battery”.
Furthermore, as zinc air batteries need only zinc, air and water to produce electricity they are likely the most environmentally friendly ones around.
However, upscaling the technology from a hearing aid to a car has always been a problem.
Until now.
At this point, most of us have heard of Better Place and their battery swap station idea, but they aren’t the only ones who’ve though of such a thing. NuTech, a company I recently discovered at the Alt Car Expo in Santa Monica, CA, has developed their own take on the concept of drive-thru battery swap stations… only theirs is portable.
One thing many Americans have been loathe to accept is public transportation. Perhaps it is a feeling embodied in the quote attributed to Homer Simpson that “public transportation is for jerks and lesbians.” Or maybe it’s the fact that America is huge and far too spread out to make public transportation viable for many commuters. Yet even so, public transportation remains one of the smartest choices for much of the US, and, with the green revolution must come greater acceptance of it.
And, when you’re talking public transit, buses make up one of the most important parts, but they are gas guzzlers. So naturally, weening these behemoths off of petrol is a high priority for many city governments. Towards this end, China and Sinautec have been testing a fleet of electric buses equipped with ultracapacitors for quick recharging and zero emissions… and so far it works.
Of course, there is a catch.
One of the biggest gripes I hear in the US about fully electric cars is that they aren’t practical because they don’t have enough range. But, what’s strange about this is, according to the 2001 US Department of Transportation National Household Travel Survey (NHTS), the average person drives their personal vehicle less than 23 miles a day—a number that is more than sufficiently covered by the 100-mile range of most upcoming mass-market electric cars.
So, if the average person drives a quarter of the distance an electric car is capable of going in a given day, why do people still say that they aren’t practical? It certainly isn’t a feeling based in how people actually use their cars. No, it’s more of a feeling based on our obsession with risk aversion—trying to avoid potential problems even if those problems don’t crop up during 95% of the rest of our lives.
Brammo is rolling out test bikes at Best Buy locations as quickly as they can, and on Sunday I had a chance to take one for a spin at Best Buy in El Segundo, CA. David, Brammo’s Service Manager and Josh, Brammo’s Southern California Marketing Manager, were on hand to answer questions about the bike—of which I had plenty.
There was only one bike available for us to test and it only had 55% of battery life in it when I took for a test ride, which held me back from going all out because I was trying to keep it alive for others to test it after me. Even so, I managed to reduce it to 29% battery life in 20 minutes.
I am a firm believer that if electric cars are to gain widespread acceptance, they first need to be proven in America’s congested cities. Most city dwellers usually don’t drive that far, have access to alternate forms of transportation, and likely spend more time on their iPhones than in a car anyway. It is the perfect proving ground for electric cars.
The MINILUX Solar Car concept realizes this, and rather than serving as an expensive paperweight while sitting idle, it can actually return energy back to the grid. It’s pretty neat looking too, aside from those funky wheels.
One deft criticism of electric cars is that they lack ambient noise to warn others of their impending approach. This is especially worrisome for the blind or elderly, and even early hybrids like the Prius are criticized for being too quiet in a world weened on engine noises. Then there are those of us who demand a growling engine as part of the automotive experience.
But that may all change in the not too distant future, as hybrid or electric cars may come equipped with artificial engine noises. You may even be able to customize the tunes coming out of your automobile.
Last night kicked off a three-day conference in Detroit on plug-in electric vehicles (which Gas 2.0 is attending). Today we’ll be hosting a live chat from the event with Britta Gross, GM director of Global Energy Systems, Infrastructure and Commercialization, and Mark Duvall, executive director of the Electric Propulsion Research Institute (EPRI). Read the rest of this entry »
Volvo C30EV on the road.
This post was written by Andrew English and originally appeared on the Popular Mechanics website.
In this rough economic climate, it appears Volvo has weathered the storm. In September, Ford’s Swedish car-making arm, Volvo, showed a 16 percent sales increase over last year—one of only nine automakers to do so. And the Swedes are showing a firm embrace on the latest environmental technologies, even if the company doesn’t quite have the wherewithal to put them all into production right now.
What will be in European showrooms next year is the plug-in hybrid V70 wagon with the capability of traveling 31 miles in electric-only mode. We’re going to have to wait for the battery-electric C30EV coupe, but Popular Mechanics was given a preview drive of both recently. Read the rest of this entry »
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) along with the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) is looking to fund $2 million dollars in coal research as part of the University Coal Research (UCR) Program. The research projects will be an attempt to improve the “fundamental understanding of the chemical and physical processes that govern coal conservation and utilization, by product utilization, and technological development.”
From an Administration that is attempting to reduce America’s dependence on oil through greenhouse gas emissions reductions, this is one of the—excuse me—stupidest ideas our country has had… at least for today. Look people, coal is NOT clean, even though the coal industry wants you to believe it is. As a matter of fact, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, a front group for the coal and utility industries, is currently running a ‘clean coal” campaign in excess of $35 million according to a Washington Post article from last year. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s one for the strange book: according to Automotive News (subs. req’d), the egg-shaped, tilt-wheel, 2-seat, Nissan electric car concept set to debut at the Tokyo Motor Show this week known as the Land Glider is apparently under serious consideration for actually being built. Not only that, reportedly the company also thinks it would work well as a luxury Infiniti.
I don’t really know what to say, except… maybe Nissan knows something about rich people that I don’t?
Many manufacturers of high-mpg and electric vehicles have adopted a 3-wheeled layout for cost and weight savings, and—in some cases—aerodynamic efficiency. In most states, however, these vehicles are classified as motorcycles. That motorcycle moniker has made them ineligible for DOE funds set aside to foster innovation among American automakers… until now!
More details, after the jump.
An analysis done by Biofuels Digest has come to the very surprising conclusion that an electric car will produce 30% more carbon dioxide emissions over its lifetime than a car powered by E85 corn ethanol. Not only that, the study also found that the same electric car will produce 21% more carbon dioxide than even a gasoline powered car.
These claims assume that 100% of the electricity for the EV comes from coal-fired power plants and that a comparable car would get 35 mpg—both of which seem like unrealistic assumptions. So I dug around the internet today to try and come up with more realistic numbers.
Attendees at a recent alternative fuels gathering in Washington are reporting that US Secretary of Energy Steven Chu remarked, “If it were up to me, I would put every cent into electric cars,” when referring to the way stimulus dollars should be distributed. With a focus on alternative and renewable fuels, the group was obviously shocked at the concept.
If this statement is being represented accurately, it would not only put Chu directly at odds with Obama administration policy, it would mean that he doesn’t really believe in how his department is distributing their $36.7 billion dollar slice of stimulus funds. The statement would also contradict Chu’s previous stances on biofuels development. Comment from DOE was not immediately available, but I’ve got a request in to confirm or deny the statement as accurate. I’ll update as soon as I hear word.
Update 8:00 PM Pacific Time 10/13/2009: DOE’s Director of Public Affairs, Dan Leistikow, responded to my request from earlier today in an email, saying “I can’t verify the quote the blogger is using from an undisclosed source at an undisclosed meeting, which is at best wildly out of context.” He also added, “Anyone who has spent five minutes listening to Secretary Chu also knows he is one of the country’s staunchest advocates for pursuing a broad portfolio of clean energy research, and has warned against investing all our resources in a single technology to the exclusion of all others.” Read the rest of this entry »
Gas 2.0
Gas 2.0 digs into the viscous world of biofuels and the fast-paced transit arena, exploring the technologies and substances that are the future of transportation.
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